The Washington Post reports that Harvard’s general counsel investigated the situation and found that the scouting report was not an isolated incident but a “tradition” and that current members of Harvard’s soccer team were less than honest about their continued participation.
As a result of this investigation, the Harvard men’s soccer team is done for the season. Director of athletics Robert Scalise wrote in an email to student athletes Thursday night,“The team will forfeit its remaining games and will decline any opportunity to achieve an Ivy League championship or to participate in the NCAA Tournament this year.” Harvard is currently No. 1 in the Ivy League standings and will have to end their season here. Boo hoo.
In a statement Thursday night, Harvard President Drew Faust condemned the actions of the soccer team, noting that she was “deeply distressed” to learn that the gross “scouting report” tradition is something that, somehow, is still happening. Faust also recommended putting the offending soccer jerks through a “systematic program of training” which will hopefully teach them that rating women based on their perceived attractiveness and engaging in what some might call “locker room talk” in a publicly searchable Google listserv is deplorable and unacceptable behavior.
Here’s hoping they learn.
